WrestleMania X8 Hands-on Report

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Exclusive: We take a brief look at an early version of Wrestlemania X8 for GCN. Full details.

By IGN Staff

Unfortunately, THQ's WWF WrestleMania X8 was not playable at today's Editor's Day in Las Vegas. But IGNcube had the chance to play the title prior to the event. Following, our impressions of the very early game.

It's two weeks before THQ's scheduled Editor's Day event in Las Vegas, Nevada, and we're at the company's Southern California-based offices. On a television screen before us, the producer of WWF WrestleMania X8 takes us through a 50% complete version of the game. It's fast, it's pretty and it's retained much of the play mechanics that made the N64 games shine brighter than all the rest. There's no doubt about it, we think, GameCubers are going to love the title.

So what's really so special about X8? What separates it from RAW for Xbox? And just who is the developer? The biggest and probably most appealing addition X8 has going for it is that it's the first game to bring together the WWF and WCW into one huge wrestling package. All of the WWF superstars wrestling fans have adored for years are featured in the title, but so are some WCW goodies -- Rob Van Dam, Booker T, DDP and the Hurricane, for example. There will be more than 35 superstars in all -- every single one of them available to play from the start. THQ has worked closely with the league to make this a reality.

The developer of the game is not AKI/Asmik, but rather Yuke's. The Japan-based software house has assembled an all new team (including key former members of the Aki/Asmik projects) and embarked upon a whole new gameplay engine designed primarily to take advantage of Nintendo's more powerful console. The advancements were visibly evident in the version we played. Wrestlers, composed of 3,500 polygons each, animated beautifully as they lugged themselves across the roped battlefield, and face-maps and body builds very closely resembled their real-life counterparts. There were some transitional animation problems -- particularly in relation to the grappling system, and some of the backgrounds seemed barren, but as we noted, the game was early.

The Rock looks more real than ever

What also separates X8 from any other wrestling offering is that it moves all around much faster and therefore the action continues with more intensity. THQ demonstrated this to us as the superstars ran and bounced across the ring, slammed into a lock and grappled with one another.

The grappling system feels very much like the N64 games. We were quickly able to pick up the controls and have at it with another wreslter, and found ourselves grappling, pulling off reversals, momentum shifts, and even finishing moves. Yuke's has attempted to highlight the control system with a sweeping camera that moves in and out of the arena to focus more closely on the wrestlers when they go into a big move. In our play time, the camera zoomed onto the action to reveal the details of the wrestlers, with a blurred out animated crowd in the background -- the effect was impressive, and we can't wait to see more tricks of this kind. THQ tells us that the crowd will in fact react to special moves and counters too, which will make for a nice addition.

Cage Match, 'nuff said.

What appeared to be lacking from the game is a story mode. The producers of the game relayed to us that for this first wrestling entry on GameCube THQ wanted to concentrate on the gameplay elements of the title versus the extras. But just because players won't be able to gape at the spoofy backstage character development doesn't mean X8 will be completely void of things to do. Quite the contrary, in fact, the title boasts signature entrances with music and TitanTron video, 40 match types, six detailed arenas, and a Champion Road mode, for starters. There is also a superbly detailed create-a-wrestler mode, which should go a long way to extending replay value.

So far, so good. WrestleMania X8 is certainly one of, if not the biggest title THQ has served up yet for GameCube and it looks very much on track to deliver on the hype and expectations from dedicated wrestling fans.

IGNcube will have much more on X8 in the coming months, including a first-look at it in motion. Stay tuned and